


Other Side of the World

by Emony



Category: E.R.
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-23
Updated: 2010-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-06 14:19:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emony/pseuds/Emony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fire fades away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Other Side of the World

**Author's Note:**

> First posted 07 July 2005

_Over the sea and far away  
She's waiting like an iceberg  
Waiting to change  
But she's cold inside  
She wants to be like the water_

Neela sat by the window, staring into the night; the rain pouring down, creating little rivers in the pavements and roads of Chicago, distorting the street lights, the weather another reminder of the distance between them. Her blanket was pulled around her shoulders. A song played in the background, repeating over and over, she was trying to understand what is was her sister had been trying to tell her.

She was waiting. For what, she wasn't sure. Change, yes. She didn't want to spend any more nights like these; the whole city moving around her, living their lives, and her only watching them pass by. To her colleagues she was Neela the intern, Neela the brain-box, Neela the cold and unfeeling. She didn't want that anymore. There was already change; normally, on nights like this, she sat in silence - tonight she had music and the rain, both to wash away the past.

_All the muscles tighten in her face  
Buries her soul in one embrace  
They're one and the same  
Just like water_

There was a look that crossed her face whenever she thought of him, of Michael. It was not a happy one. It was not sad either; it was troubled. She had put her soul into that one night, after months of thoughts, letters, and fantasies, but never the real thing. Music had been a part of things then, too. It had taken months to realise what it had done. That night Michael had pressed a button, bringing the stereo to life, and the music played; Ray's music. They answered that first track; they numbed the pain, the hurt of the previous months. It had been that music that had brought an unsettling emotion with it: guilt. It took a very long time for her to even acknowledge that feeling, and once she had, even longer to think about doing something about it.

She had put her soul into that one night, she had buried it. There it had stayed for months; with the man of her dreams, the man who, in a way, was her; too similar. Change; she didn't need a life of constants, where she always stayed the same. That had been what she had tried to tell Michael, in that long and confusing conversation. By going to him, had she cut herself off from change? Was she going to stay like this forever, watching the world go on around her, waiting?

_The fire fades away  
Most of every day  
Is full of tired excuses  
But it's too hard to say_

The fire, it had built up over a non-existent relationship; it faded. Every time she thought of writing to him she put it off, there was always some reason; _I'll do it tomorrow, after my shift, when I get a break._ The excuses continued. It was hard to say, to say it was over before it had had a chance to really begin. Last week Pratt had asked if she'd heard from Gallant and winked at her. She'd laughed it off and hurried away to her next trauma, but not before she'd seen the hurt look in Ray's eyes.

That look had given her some hope that she wouldn't have to spend her life waiting for an ideal to come home, that the feeling locked inside her heart may be answered.

_I wish it were simple  
But we give up easily  
You're close enough to see that  
You're the other side of the world to me_

It's not giving up, not really. Anyway, he'd done it first, writing that letter, the one that still sat in her box, unopened. She had been so angry when Pratt had given her the letter, how was it real if they could only communicate by letters? Maybe someday, maybe, she'd read it. Not today. Today she had another letter to read.

Months had passed, he'd finally written. He's the other side of the world and he's finally beginning to realise that the dream of the girl back home, is just that: a dream.

_On comes the panic light  
Holding on with fingers and feelings alike  
But the time has come  
To move along_

As much as he realises that truth he fights against it. The letter begins with how he's missed her, how often he thinks of her and the last he saw her. Would that be as he left the ER or the sex? She laughs, he's male. He wants her to think he means it… romantically, but it's all about the sex. Is it all a last ditch attempt at holding on to her, as he feels her slipping away?

It's this letter that put the final nail in; gave her the courage to think, what next?

_The fire fades away_

It's faded. Maybe even as he wrote the letter as she slept.

_Can you help me  
Can you let me go_

He still thinks of her as the fighting goes on around him. She is just an ideal, part of what he tells himself he is fighting for. He holds on to that ideal and won't let it or her go.

_And can you still love me  
When you can't see me anymore_

Was it ever love? Was it just the meeting of two fantasies that would never really meet up to reality? Even if it had been, was it still? He doesn't see her, he can't call her and he rarely writes. He says he thinks of her… does he really even remember exactly what she looks like? Or is that an ideal too?

_The fire fades away_

It's faded.

***

The apartment door bangs open and then shut. She sighs and seals the letter she has written into the envelope; it's not the answer he will be hoping for, but it will be the one that he half expects.

"Neela?"

"Ray."

He stands in the doorway to her room, eyes piercing the soul she had finally uncovered, the soul no longer buried inside the heart of a man in a tent on the other side of the world.

The song finishes again, and then it starts. He raises an eyebrow but stays quiet as he listens. He knows music; he understood long before she did, and he wonders why she's had this same track on repeat for so many days.

"Nice music."

"My sister sent it."

"Sister?"

"I have two, Radha's a couple of years younger than me."

Taking courage she reaches over and picks up the letter, the one lying open on her bed and passes it to him.

He reads,

"Neela,  
You don't seem to be listening to me. This is my last try. It's a great album but I want you to listen to the first track, over and over if you have to. If you don't get it, get that roomie of yours to explain it to you. Just stop whining about Michael and get on with it!  
Love you, sister-mine

Radha."

He looks at her and realises she does understand what it was supposed to be telling her, even if it did take several days. He glances at the letter again.

"Get on with what?"

She stands, dropping the blanket to the floor, and walks toward him. She takes the letter from his grasp and drops it on the bed behind her.

"This."

She pulls his face toward hers; all the fear is gone now, all that's left is hope as their lips meet.

Ray thinks he'll have to give Radha a big hug if he ever meets her. Without her, it would have been months before Neela got on with it. After that, his thoughts were on nothing but the woman before him and the night before them.

The End.

Lyrics – KT Tunstall – Other Side of the World.


End file.
